I have this small shimpaku and instead of waiting a year for more foliage and styling it the way it is, I would like to make it more dynamic. So how are the shimpakus like the one below twisted so much and how do you keep the foliage close as the trunk thickens. The pictures after are my shimpaku and i understand it has a straight section but that's ok with me.

Jake16 wrote:I can definitely do that. Question is how to make it look good?

Time! LOTS of it. That tree you showed may be 50-100 years old. You can force a nursery tree to twist and turn, but you have to:

a. Start with very good -- and old -- material, orb. Start with merely good material and be willing to work on it -- and wait -- for 10-20 years, developing YOUR skills (on other trees) as you go.

I'm not sure the tree you want to start with will ever get you there -- but it can serve to develop your skills.

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXBolLNIFYo some good info there, as well as explains how they get to be like the one you pictured. Aything has potential, nature has no rule book, do take the time though to properly map the derection you would like to go. All we have is time, good growing.

the one shown was coiled up as a small very thin tree and then field grown to thicken and set. These are pieces of commercial material designed to be a bonsai of an exact shape from day one.

This is the opposite of getting an already thicker juniper and trying to coil it up.....basically a juniper left to grow as a garden plant will not end up making the corkscrew style tree anything like the one you first pictured. I think the single biggest skill that must be learnt in bonsai is to be realistic about the material that sits in front of you and to know what finished style will be achievable with both time and your skill and ability at the time.

As far as getting foliage near the trunk it is easy if you ignore the poor advice of removing the new shoots that appear at the inner branch forks and between the trunk and branch unions. Older books said to clean these out, and this has become the repeated advice for juniper thinning, but it is these inner shoots you need to use to regrow the branches from nearer to the trunk. Letting the sunlight reach the inner areas stimulates the buds, feeding well develops the tree and then managing the outer growth sends energy to these inner shoots - this makes them stronger - then you cut the outer part of the branch off and start the branch again from the new shoot.

Ok so I just watched the Lindsay Farr's Bonsai season two episode two. The guy in the video was creating a spiral shari on the trunk every year or every few years. Just to make sure, He is just getting the spiral vein to enlarge, not actually bending the trunk correct?